MEMBER'S
EDITION BONUS CONTENT: This week, the
latest installment of "Important, Fundamental Matters" from Kazunari
Furuyama and Yilun Yang's hard endgame problem. As a special bonus
we've also included the game record from Iyama Yuta's 1st-round win
over Cho U in the Meijin. Enjoy! Non-members: join the American Go
Association and get all this great content with every EJ! It's all just
a click
away!

September
8, 2008: Volume 9, #47

NORCAL AUGUST RATINGS TOURNEY SETS
ATTENDANCE RECORD: Forty-eight kids and adults played go
over Labor Day Weekend at the Bay Area Go Players Association August
monthly ratings tournament in Palo Alto, CA, setting a new attendance
record for the monthly ratings tournaments. Players from 7 dan to 30
kyu participated, and people came from as far away as Los Angeles to
play. For nine of the players, this was their first rated tournament,
and the AGA got seven new members before the day was over. Wenyi Feng
3d won the dan division and Robert Bates 9k won the kyu division, each
winning all four of their games. Click
here for details for the September monthly ratings
tournament. - report by Roger Schrag; photo
by Ming Liao

COTSEN OFFERS
$5K PRIZE PURSE: Pre-registration is now open for the 2008
Cotsen Open, one of the largest tournaments of the year, set
for September 20-21 in Los Angeles, CA. With over $5,000 in prizes, the
Cotsen also features one of the richest prize purses of the year.
Because of the event's growth, this year's Cotsen will be held in a new
venue, the UCLA Bradley International Hall, the same location as the
N.A. Oza West earlier this year. The Cotsen is also famous for its free
luxury buffet (only for those who pre-register), masseuses ("to ease
the tensions that arise in your shoulders when you discover that your
big group really doesn't have two eyes) and registration refund (for
players who play all five rounds). To register via e-mail, fill in the
online form and send to casie@thelec.com
before September 12. Top boards at the Cotsen will be broadcast live on
KGS by the E-Journal, which will publish updates on the tournament on
the AGA's
website.

KGS HOSTS U.S.-CHINA
FRIENDLY TEAM TOURNEY: Six strong American players will
face six top amateur players from Jiangsu province of China in the "361
Club" room of KGS at 9A EDT and 10P EDT, this Sunday, September 14,
reports Lie Li 9D. The US team includes Huiren Yang 1P, Joey Hung 8D,
Dae Hyuk Ko 8D, Eric Lui 8D, Thomas Hsiang 8D and Jie Liang 8D. The
players from Jiangsu are Chinese amateur 6 dans, and include Zhang Lei,
Chai Qingying, Liang Cheng, Wen Jie, Wang Shao and Wang Xinjia. All
have been Jiangsu Youth Champions; Chai ranked 4th in the Chinese
national amateur tournament (Wanbao Cup), Wen was the 3rd World Student
Champion and Wang Shao was the amateur champion of Japan. Ke Lu 5D is
the Tournament Director and Jie Li 9D and Eric Lee 3D are Assistant
Tournament Directors. "Calvin Sun 6D will also play with Chen Fan 5D, a
12 year-old girl from the Jiangsu province," Li adds.

WORLD STUDENT OZA
REGISTRATION OPEN: The deadline to register for the
North American qualifying tournament for the World
Student Oza is October
19. "General criteria are residency
-- not necessarily citizenship --in North America, under the age of 30,
and enrollment in a full-time university program, as well as a minimum
AGA rating of 5.0 or its foreign equivalent," reports AGA Tournament
Coordinator Phil Waldron. Click
here for details on this year's tournament.

LUI AND HSIANG
TAPPED FOR INT'L TOURNEYS: Eric Lui (left)
8D and Thomas Hsiang (below right) 8D have been
tapped to represent the United States at the World Amateur Go Championships
(WAGC) and Korean Prime Minister's Cup, respectively. The Prime
Minister's Cup will be held next month in Seoul, Korea, and the WAGC will
be held next May in Japan. "Eric is one of the nation's top amateurs
and hasqualified
through the AGA's selection process,"
reports AGA Tournament Coordinator Phil Waldron,
"notably placing as the top citizen in US Open championships for the
past two years." Waldron's recommendations have been submitted to AGA
President Allan Abramson for final approval. Waldron also reports that
"the web page related to the AGA's various invitational tournaments is
being updated." The Invitational
Tournament page includes the current WAGC point standings and
new pages for both the Korean Prime Minister's Cup and the Student Oza.
Click
here for more information about the WAGC, the AGA's WAGC
selection process and the historical performance of American
representatives.

NOVEL GO:
David Boop's new book "She
Murdered Me with Science" has a scene where the main
character is playing go in a go parlor, reports Karen Jordan. "David is
a go player," Jordan - who met Boop while working at the recent
World Science Fiction Convention in Denver -- tells the EJ.
"He included a brief description of go (in the novel). I had hoped that after
the main character said that he wanted to die in a
corner that he would die in a corner in
his go game, but apparently that didn't happen. Anyway, I'm glad to see
that David was able to include go in a ‘mainstream' novel."

TEEN IYAMA TAKES
FIRST GAME IN MEIJIN: Teenager Iyama
Yuta(right) 8P defeated reigning MeijinCho
U 9P by 5.5 points in the first game of their
best-of-seven-game match on September 4-5. An SGF file of the game is
attached; the opening play is quite spirited. Iyama has been amassing
an amazing record the last few years, but a top-seven title in Japan
has never been won by a teenager,
and winning this title would bring him to a whole new level. The second
game is scheduled for September 17-18. Iyama is also maintaining his
lead in the current league to determine the challenger
for the
Kisei. There are two six-person round robin leagues, and the
two winners play each other to be the challenger. About halfway
through, Iyama is 3-0. Everyone else in both groups has
lost at least one game. Iyama will be playing Cho
Chikun 9P on September
11th.

ALL-CHINESE
FINALS IN WORLD OZA: The finals of the 4th international
Toyota
Denso World Oza Cup will be between two Chinese
representatives this time, Piao
Wenyao(right) 5P (who defeated his
fellow countryman Xie He 7P in the semifinals), and Gu
Li(left) 9P (who knocked out Cho U 9P
of Japan). The best-of-three-game match will take place in early
January in Tokyo. The first three editions of this event were won by
Koreans: Lee
Changho 9P won the first and Lee
Sedol 9P won the next two. Cho U did make it into the finals
last year. This is yet another indication of the success the Chinese
are having in challenging the recent dominance of the Koreans in
international events. Piao is just twenty; he won the CCTV
Cup in China last year. Gu Li 9P has been one of the
very top players in China for several years now and has won many titles,
including the international Fujitsu
Cup in July of this year.

TALKING STONES:
The Possible Spiritualism of Tibetan GoBy Peter ShotwellI've just returned from a highly successful
symposium on go art and history at the European Go Congress in Leksand,
Sweden. It was graciously hosted by a team headed by Henric
Bergsåker, with the cooperation of the Nordic Confucius Institute at
Stockholm University, and the Japan World Exposition. The paper I
presented there -- 'The Possible Spiritualism of Tibetan Go' -- is
posted as Appendix III of the Tibetan
Go essay. It is a preliminary attempt to account for some of
the oddities -- from our point of view -- of Tibetan rules, such as
gaining points for capturing the center and losing some for losing four
corners. The initial layout of twelve stones and another rule -- That
moves can only be made one intersection away from existing stones (with
knight's moves being OK) -- all may have been devised to make go more
acceptable to the Buddhists, whose monks traditionally don't play the
game. Any further information on traditional Tibetan go would be
greatly appreciated. Please write me at the E-Journal: journal@usgo.org

GO QUIZ:
Fightback King & Ratings Poll
Cho Chikun (right) -- famous for his fightbacks
in Top Three titles -- has managed to fight back from an 0-3 deficit on
three different occasions - and 9 of 18 of you selected three as your
correct answer - but the correct quiz answer was actually four.
Jonathan Huber provides the correct and sad complete details: "That was
clever to ask ‘involved in' (as) Cho Chikun has won a miraculous
fightback 3 times (7th Kisei, (9th Meijin, 47th Honinbo), but the
tables turned on him When he lost the 38th Honinbo" to Rin Kaiho in one
of Rin's two miraculous fightbacks. Seven of you chose the correct
answer, including this week's winner, Oliver Nava, chosen at random
from those answering correctly. In an interesting sidelight, EJ reader
Young Kwon commented with pride "I had the honor to teach him (Cho) at
6 stone handicap when he was 5 years old" Wow!THIS WEEK'S QUIZ: RATINGS POLL: While I firmly
believe the AGA has one of -- if not the -- best rating systems in the
world, there is substantial evidence that it's softer then the European
system, and similar evidence that our ranks are stronger than the
Japanese. How do you feel about this situation? Click
here to let us know whether the AGA's rating system match
those of other countries, and if so, if our ranks should match the
Japanese or the Europeans. Also, how much weaker do you think AGA ranks
are, compared to the Europeans, and how much stronger than the
Japanese? Note: we welcome responses from readers around the world as
well as here in the United States!- Keith Arnold

YOUR MOVE:
Readers WriteAMERICAN PAIR GO, NOT NORTH AMERICAN:
"Edward Zhang's report in the 9/1/2008 Journal refers to the
championships held at the American Go Congress this year as being the
North American Championships," writes Jean Waldron. "I'd like to point
out that while it was an excellent tournament, it was rather, the
American Pair Go Championships. The Canadian Pair Go championships were
held in Quebec City on September 1." The error was made in the editing
process and was not Zhang's; we regret the error. LASKER NO SLOUCH: "The
Grandmaster title as we know it today was instituted in 1950, well
after Lasker's prime ("Edward Lasker Good But Not Grand" 9/1 EJ),"
writes Peter St. John. "The term was used variously prior to that;
there was no official list. Lasker was second in the United States
after the legendary Frank Marshall and with Marshall was one of only
two US participants in the great tournament New York 1924. What must be
understood is that the International Master title awarded to him by
FIDE was decades past his competitive peak. So by the standards of the
20's, it would be reasonable to call him a grandmaster. The main
take-away is that the title had not been invented yet in the modern
sense; and that he was number 2 in the country. No slouch. Not a
dilettante." Click
here for a brief history of the title.

GO
CLASSIFIEDSELL IT, BUY IT OR TRADE IT HERE with nearly
13,000 go-players worldwide! Classified ads are FREE and run for 4
weeks; email your ad to us now at journal@usgo.org

FOR
SALE: EVA foam go sets; include EVA foam go board (reversible 19 x 19
in one side and 9x9 in backside). Also included are 180 + 180 EVA foam
go stones.Total cost of the set is US 9.40 + freight (from Brazil);
good discounts for more than 5 sets. Contact Roberto Petresco
at rpetresco@yahoo.com (9/8)

HELP
WANTED: Help create a tradition of public, in-person games in the
United States. Users, testers, designers, and developers are needed for
a new open-source web site dedicated to promoting Go in the United
States. Click
here for details. (9/1)

FOR
SALE: Japanese 1.5cm folding board, $40. Two Japanese 1.8cm folding
boards, $50. Pair of Japanese medium-size chestnut bowls, $50. Set of
very old, Japanese, 4.5mm shell & slate stones in chestnut
bowls, $85. Buyer pays shipping. The boards and bowls are all in very
good, gently used condition. Some of the antique shell stones are
chipped, as should be expected for their age, but they are quite usable
and very unique. You just can't buy new stones like these anymore.
Contact Anton at antonninno@yahoo.com
(8/18)

Text
material published in the AMERICAN GO E JOURNAL may be reproduced by
any recipient: please credit the AGEJ as the source. PLEASE NOTE that
commented game record files MAY NOT BE published, re-distributed, or
made available on the web without the explicit written permission of
the Editor of the E-Journal. Please direct inquiries to journal@usgo.org

Articles
appearing in the E-Journal represent the opinions of the authors and do
not necessarily reflect the official views of the American Go
Association.

American
Go Association
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